EDDIE Izzard backed Labour candidates to win a “tough fight” in the West End ward and claimed headless chickens were better clued up than the Conservative cabinet.

The comedian and long-term party activist, who says he has lived in the West End since 2014, was in Soho on Tuesday night to back Pancho Lewis, Patrick Lilley and Caroline Saville.

When asked about the likelihood of the West End turning red, he told the Extra: “It’s a tough ask, it’s a tough fight but we should go for it, that’s what the Labour Party are good at. The Tories just throw money at everything. They say ‘let’s put big billboards, let’s put up some expensive adverts’, whereas we talk to people, we get to know people, we knock on doors. We are the Labour Party and we believe in our members.”

“Tories have no plans about the future. They are headless chickens. In fact if they had a whole cabinet of headless chickens in there, they might do better than the Tory Party.”

Mr Izzard with his favourite weekly read

On whether the Labour Party anti- Semitism row would tip the West End vote in Conservatives’ favour, he said: “It could do to some people, being totally realistic,” but added that: “He [Jeremy Corbyn] is a good fighter. I want him to fight all the time.”

After the campaign session, Mr Izzard was due to go to a language lesson ahead of his upcoming show in Germany.

Mr Izzard, who is planning on standing to beanMPinthe2020 election, said: “I have a lot of energy. I’ve been at the Labour Party for ages. I can talk, I’ve got heels, I run marathons and I believe in people.” Councillors and campaigners told the Extra that this year the West End ward, which has always been Conservative, is ready for change.

Cllr Adam Hug, Labour group leader, said: “There’s a good feeling on the doorstep, better than it’s been for a long time. We are reaching out to people that haven’t traditionally been Labour. We are fighting to win.”